shamed to confess it to myself; but there it was, and I discovered it
at last.

Perhaps it was because of his quickness at lessons; perhaps because,
from time to time in his turn, enjoyments which could not be shared by
both were permitted to him--I had only the half, where before I should
have had the whole; perhaps it was all this together, combined with the
secret evils I had not hitherto found out in my own heart and
disposition; but the result was, that I had now and then such miserable
moments of being angry, and provoked, and unhappy, not because my cousin
had done anything unkind, but simply because he had, in some
unintentional manner, interfered with my pleasure, that I was ready to
wish I had never had a cousin, or that he had never come to Braycombe.

It is not to be supposed that this was my settled, constant state of
mind. Far from it. In general, we two boys were as frisky, and merry,
and happy with each other, as boys could be; but these dark feelings
came and went, and came and went, until I began to be less surprised at
them than when I first found them out. For some time my mother had no
idea of their existence. To all outward appearance we were just as we
had been in the early days of our friendship; and if I did not so often
enlarge upon the happiness of having Aleck to live with me, I know now
that she only put it down to the novelty of the companionship wearing
off. I remember quite distinctly the first time that she noticed some
little indication of the secret mischief that was going on. It was the
time of afternoon preparation of lessons for the following morning, and
I was sitting with my books before me at the school-room table, writing
a Latin exercise; or perhaps it would be more correct to say, _not_
writing my Latin exercise, for my pen had stopped half-way to the
ink-bottle, and my chin was resting on my left hand and my elbow on the
table, and I was indulging uninterruptedly in my own reflections, when
the door opened, and my mother entered the room.

"Where's Aleck?" was her first inquiry, as she looked round and saw that
I was alone.

"He's been gone five minutes," I replied, without raising my eyes, and
in a tone which I meant to convey--and, I am aware, did convey--that I
was in no pleasant mood.

"How's that?" rejoined my mother, taking no notice of my manner. "Aleck
was told not to leave the school-room until his lessons were finished.
He knows my rule, and is not generally di